Preparation of activated carbon from date sphate using microwave irradiation and investigation of its capability for removal of dye pollutant from aqueous media

•Date sphate was converted to activated carbon by microwave heating.•Best conditions for preparation were obtained by the response surface methodology.•The prepared activated carbon is an efficient adsorbent for dye removal.

Date sphate has been applied as a primary, abundant, cheap and available precursor to produce activated carbon for removal of a dye pollutant from aqueous solution. Phosphoric acid as an activating agent and microwave energy as a heating source have been used. Using microwave irradiation instead of furnace heating caused the decrease of operation time, saving and homogeneous heating of sample. To optimize the method of production, the effects of different parameters on the capability of the produced activated carbon for dye removal were analyzed using statistical method. The prepared activated carbon was characterized by CHN elemental analysis, SEM, N2 adsorption/desorption and pHpzc methods. The ability of the prepared adsorbent for removal of methylorange and the effect of temperature and pH on removal efficiency were studied. Adsorption of methylorange was studied from kinetics and equilibrium point of view. The experimental data were fitted with different isotherms and kinetics models.